


shine on in this sea

by dotdotmoon



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Aquariums, Gay Bar, Halloween, M/M, mermaiding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19770847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotdotmoon/pseuds/dotdotmoon
Summary: It's Halloween month at the aquarium, and Junmyeon trips over the ghost of a starfish-crossed love.





	shine on in this sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamy_Ideal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamy_Ideal/gifts).



> a friend asked for this: "sulay as the mermaid/mascot but xing's real passionate about fantasy aquatic folk and comes by myeon's tank to talk about different types of merfolk to the kids"  
> i filled this prompt like it's a glass and i was pouring everything everywhere but into the glass. i'm sorry.
> 
> happy birthday, friend!! please don't block me if it takes me another seven months to post the second chapter ;;;;
> 
> extended content notes:  
> \- plenty of mentions of fish, sharks etc.  
> \- kids. why did you make me write kids??

The relief of peeling off his heavy tail, being able to move his legs independently still lingers. Junmyeon's going to have to wear one again in a few hours, but the ones at the bar are lighter, more for show, less for any elaborate swimming. They're mostly flirting and doing tricks, in tanks that are barely big enough to turn around.  


He slips through the staff door into the visitor area and is instantly swept off course by a flock of kids. One of them looks like they entirely forgot to breathe when their eyes meet, and he gives them the merman pop eyes, as round and big as he can manage, before slowly winking (he's picked that up from Minseok's cat). He's awkward around kids, usually, but the merman costume helps, makes him feel less like Junmyeon. Not having to talk to them helps too, just mirroring their excitement or disbelief comes easy enough. Maybe it's just the thick glass pane separating them though.  


The kid squeaks a little, both hands covering their mouth. Junmyeon ignores the instinct to pat their head; he doesn't touch strangers and much less strange kids. He wonders anyway. He's rarely recognised outside of tanks, make-up-less, in comfortable, worn clothes, far away from the glamour of a merman floating through the water, playing and dallying with patrons.  


Finally, their friends pull them away, chide them for staring at the guy who wears grandpa clothes, and didn't they see the socks and the sandals? Junmyeon smiles to himself, finds himself near the touch tanks, watches the solemn, apprehensive faces of children breaking out into shrieks and giggles, some exhilarated, some deep in thought, some disgusted, when a manta ray brushes by their fingertips, or they feel the texture of a starfish for the first time—only to reach in again.  


A group of trick-and-treaters pass by, mistaking him for the staff who hand out candies with how he's standing and observing, as if waiting for a cue. They attack him with their water spray bottles before Junmyeon can point them to the human-sized jellyfish, someone hidden under an umbrella and only reaching through the beaded curtain of tentacles to fill something into their small paper bags. His hand brushes over where his shirt clings to skin wetly now but it's welcome, with the aquarium always being a little to warm for his comfort, even after he's spent a shift in the cold water of the tanks.

It's nice. Junmyeon doesn't get a chance to see this often, has never seen the Halloween events up close. He forgets to come on his days off, wore everyone out with frequent invitations to accompany him through the aquarium after his shifts already. Most of his friends prefer to see him performing at the bar where they run less of a risk being lectured on the imminent collapse of the oceans and having to call it a night early when he gets so upset he cries.

Junmyeon wanders around, stands a litte away from the small crowd gawping at a performer, spots the volunteer doing the tours for deaf and hard of hearing folks among them. Minseok's doing backflips before they go back to floating close to the glass, hands eager to answer the kids' questions. The aquarium is in Halloween mode for the month, but they're in their usual costume, tail iridescent pink and hair blue, unlike Junmyeon who performed as a vampire this afternoon, in colours unusual for mermaiding, deep red, black and white. Their shows are different anyway, not any less glamorous, just a little longer, more responsive to the audience. Minseok insisted on answering any questions right there instead of making them come to the Q&A sessions all other performers do, lounging on rocks somewhere out in the garden.  


Junmyeon stays, watches, dances and sings along to himself when Minseok wraps their show up with an interpretation of the baby shark song. He loves their shows dearly, feels somewhat bad about his own, all distant grace, synchronised movements, wide theatre smiles, wishes he could move people as deeply as Minseok does. He trails behind the group when they leave, the volunteer prying some of them away from the glass, all looking a little dazed.

They reach the gallery, a round space surrounded by water tanks brimming with sea life. People of all ages are pressed up against the panes, holding staring contests with uninterested sharks, fish and jellyfish that drift by, eyes following small but garish shrimp as they wander around. He finds a vacant spot and does the same, follows the movements of a tiny sea snail along the side of a rock. Although he regularly spends time inside the tanks, sharing the space with fish and other creatures, it's nice on the outside, where he doesn't have to worry about his air supply or breaking character when a jellyfish bumps into his eye or a fish bites his nipple.  


The big table set up in one corner catches his attention, and Junmyeon steps closer, around the roped-off area with tents in the middle of the room, recognises Yixing in a bevy of children on tiny chairs, their eyes glued to his lips.  


He's not wearing the manta ray costume, apparently manning one of the craft stations tonight. He's singing the aquarium song Junmyeon heard he wrote himself, letting the kids repeat the last word of every line back to him. Junmyeon thinks he can make out a few fish-related Halloween puns; it's boisterous and looks fun. One kid yells for an encore when Yixing's done but seems satisfied when Yixing pulls out a stash of origami paper instead and announces they're going make paper sea creatures now.  


Junmyeon settles onto one of the benches close by, suddenly feeling too heavy to carry himself any longer, closes his eyes and lets the pleasant bustling noise wash over him.  
He hears Yixing asking the kids if they'd ever met a merperson, and they break out into noisy chatter over the show they've seen today. A smile steals on his face when Yixing responds to one kid's worries about the aquarium "locking the mermaids up" with a bold lie about how all the merfolk here had to do was swim through an underground tunnel to reach the ocean. Junmyeon thinks he's lucky they don't follow up asking about the sharks.

"Don't they get scared in the dark?" another kid wants to know.

Yixing doesn't laugh at them. "The tunnel is lit, it's like merfolk disco down there," he says. "But the dark isn't scary by itself, you know? It's usually other people doing the scary things."

"Like when we sleep!" a kid yells. "I like sleeping alone because then my sibling isn't there to scare me."

"Just like that," Yixing says. "So, what do you think merfolk like to eat?"

There's a hand on his shoulder, warm and gentle. Junmyeon must have dozed off; the last thing he remembers is Yixing telling the kids about space whales, how they swam to Earth whenever they had enough of playing with the stars, how they hid behind clouds during the day, how it rained whenever they sneezed.

"Come help me clean up?" Yixing asks. "The next group should be here soon."

Junmyeon is too surprised to deny him, gets up to join Yixing at the table. He's sweeping abandoned attempts at folding... jellyfish it must have been, Junmyeon decides, into a paper bin.

"You're good with kids," Junmyeon says as casually as he can as he tries to make himself useful by collecting the pens strewn about, crawling under the table to gather a few stray ones.

"I dream of having some of my own," Yixing says after a moment. When Junmyeon comes back up, he sees he's stilled where he was pushing in the chairs, looks more serious than Junmyeon's seen him in a while. "I always said I wanted five or six, as a young boy, and adopted every kid younger than me that didn't get away in time."

The underlying sadness hits Junmyeon like a punch to the gut when Yixing smiles. He knows he's staring, can feel his awkwardness spiking, doesn't know what to say.

"Let me give you a reward for helping," Yixing says then.

It's ridiculous, Junmyeon wants to protest. He's barely done anything. His heart thrums uncomfortably in his throat when Yixing leans in unopposed, puts something into the pocket of his shirt. He doesn't back out of Junmyeon's space immediately, and Junmyeon feels this pull in his heart again. It's easy to block out when he usually sees Yixing in the manta ray costume, not in a woollen sweater tucked into a comfortable looking pair of jeans worn thin at the knees, easier to forget about when he barely ever sees his face.

Yixing pats the pocket on his chest. "Give this to Chanyeol, he'll give you some of his handmade candies in exchange. They're truly terrifying."

The simple touch grounds him, and he feels his heart calming down so his head clears enough to make his mouth say things.

"Are you sending me to deliver a declaration of war?" Junmyeon asks, peering down at the folded piece of paper sticking out of the pocket.  
It's not a secret Chanyeol felt challenged when Yixing's song was picked for the aquarium, although no one had known he wrote songs too. And maybe he hadn't before, Junmyeon thinks, he might have just picked this interest up and declared it his calling as soon as it entered his periphery.

"Would you return to me with his answer if I did?" Yixing asks. Junmyeon isn't sure if he imagined the wink.

"I like to stay out of drama," he says, helplessly, and it makes Yixing laugh. Junmyeon's cheeks start to burn when he realises.

"Don't be embarrassed, I like dad jokes," Yixing says. "Anyway, please go see Chanyeol. I'm sure he'll appreciate a former actor's feedback on his puppet show."

"Yixing," Junmyeon says, "could we—"

Yixing's looking at him like he did at the end of their first date. Like he's seeing a narrowly missed chance, long-gone but propped up in a glass case, all its secrets exposed to strange eyes and hearts, unamenable to who it once belonged to.  
It's been around a year, and it's scary how clearly Junmyeon remembers. He wants it gone, replaced, wants to see anything but this look on Yixing's face.

"You could join the sleepover tonight," Yixing offers, points to one of the tents. "This one's mine."

"I have work tonight," Junmyeon says, and ignores his heart screaming at him to just skip. He can't afford to listen to his heart.

"Lunch tomorrow then?"

"I'll be out of town for a workshop. We could go to the movies on Sunday?"

"My best friend is visiting this weekend," Yixing says and his face falls. "I'll meet you after work next week?"

"Can't, I picked up double shifts and will be entirely useless afterwards." Junmyeon feels strangely comforted that he's not the only one who seems to want to crawl into his bed and sleep all this bad luck away.

"That must be why we never went on that second date," Yixing says and laughs a little.

A few kids found their way to the table in the meanwhile and start discussing seating arrangements. Yixing gives him an apologetic look and inserts himself into their conversation to keep them from fighting over who has to sit on the "uncool" chair.

Junmyeon's rounded the tents before he has an idea. He waits until Yixing got everyone seated and started a candy trading game before he pulls him aside. "Come to the bar tonight? I work until 1AM but will be free after."

Yixing looks more puzzled than Junmyeon expected him to. "I go to bed around 9."

"Yeah okay, that's fine," Junmyeon says, makes to leave and climb out of this pit of worst luck for good.

Yixing reaches for his wrist before he can. "I'll stay up, I'll come," he says, "no promises I won't fall asleep on you but I'll try."

And then there's a smile so soft and untamed on his face Junmyeon thinks he won't find any joy in looking at cute baby animals for a while.

"Have you ever kissed a merperson?" he hears Yixing asking the kids as he walks away. "Did you know they grant one wish for each kiss—but will eat your entire fridge and your house and your pet if you kiss them without permission?"

**Author's Note:**

> i have the second chapter all planned out but i'm not making any promises to update soon. we all know how that would go
> 
> ty for reading 🎐  
> please let me know if it made you feel anything
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/fakeclover) | [cc](http://curiouscat.me/fakeclover)


End file.
